electrons's Blog

On Sunday, we land on Mars again this time with the Phoenix spacecraft.  It'll be a nail-biter the last 3 minutes prior to tuchdown when the parachute will deploy at 1.7 times the speed of sound in the Martian atmosphere.

This was a 10 month journey traveling over 400 million miles.  Here is the schedule of events:

-- Spacecraft enters atmosphere, 7:46:33 p.m.
-- Likely blackout period as hot plasma surrounds spacecraft, 7:47 through 7:49 p.m.
-- Parachute deploys, 7:50:15 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Heat shield jettisoned, 7:50:30 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds.
-- Legs deploy, 7:50:40 p.m., plus or minus about 13 seconds. -
- Radar activated, 7:51:30 p.m.
-- Lander separates from backshell, 7:53:09 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Transmission gap during switch to helix antenna 7:53:08 to 7:53:14 p.m.
-- Descent thrusters throttle up, 7:53:12 p.m.
-- Constant-velocity phase starts, 7:53:34 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Touchdown, 7:53:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.
-- Lander radio off 7:54:52 p.m., plus or minus about 46 seconds.

NASA TV will begin live coverage at 6PM.  For those of you without NASA TV, you can view it online at NASA.gov.  Enjoy!

Tom